Change came into effect last week
Laing O’Rourke is mandating the switch to low carbon concrete on all of its new UK projects.
The change will be introduced with immediate effect and applies to all new projects that begin main construction on or after 1 April.
The firm said it will result in a significant reduction in the company’s scope 3 carbon emissions.
The country’s biggest private contractor said the changes were being introduced following a long-term research programme co-funded by O’Rourke and government research group Innovate UK.
O’Rourke said the research, carried out in collaboration with the University of Cambridge and Sheffield University’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, “has proven that a range of low carbon concrete options can be successfully deployed on projects as a like-for-like substitute for traditional concrete”.
O’Rourke said the overall carbon reduction will be 28% when compared with the company’s concrete usage last year.
The firm’s newly appointed chief operating officer Cathal O’Rourke, who took up the post last week, said: “The built environment makes a significant contribution to global warming and constructors must work with clients and design partners to deploy new technologies and innovations that make modern methods the norm and enable us to build in less carbon intensive ways.”
The firm, which last year became a founding member of Concrete Zero, said that 43% of the concrete products it manufactured in 2022 were low carbon.
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